We Walk Alone
by generationfire
Summary: People always said she had a good head on her shoulders, even for a member of District 5.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I didn't invent the character or the setting or the Hunger Games Trilogy, which is why I am poor. Enjoy!**

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><p><em>"I'm always dreading the others, but maybe Foxface is the real opponent here"<em>

People always said she had a good head on her shoulders, even for a member of District 5.  
>She'd done the math, calculated the chances, the possibilities-<p>

It still didn't look good.

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><p>District 5, for all its smarts, did not have many children. She had entered her name more than once, more than anyone, because she- no, her mother- needed the rations.<p>

Plus, there weren't many eligible children of her age left. Not after the disastrous drug that was supposed to cure any problems with vision in young children. Because District 5 made the drugs, they also got to be the ones to test it. And, well, the tests didn't go well.

Just a few weeks ago, the family had moved from the east to the west of the District. The chances of survival were greater there, though it was difficult to get into the west. Her father had to work three jobs to even pay off the debts, clean the record, have a chance at the lottery.

It's always a struggle to survive.

Ironic, really, that just when they moved to be safer-

There was no point in dwelling on it.

It wasn't going to look any better.

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><p>Even the small glimpses she's caught so far of the Capitol seem a world apart from the cobblestone roads and stark white houses in the District. These buildings are colourful, original, special. There are shops on every corner, and people have strange hair.<p>

It's not home.

She wishes she could show these colours to her sister. She wishes she could bring her brother one of the toy planes she'd seen a little boy play with. She wishes she could live here, she wishes her mother could go to the hospitals here, she wishes her father could find work here.

She wishes, she wishes, but she knows, too. And it still doesn't look good.

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><p>Her make-up artists compliment her features in the most artificial voices she's ever heard. She suspects this is how they always talk to all their customers in the Capitol. Everyone is placated, pacified to the extreme.<p>

That's what the games are for, aren't they?

She doesn't want to wear the horrendous outfits they chose for District 5. They feel dirty on her skin, she feels like a fraud, this feels like one big circus-

She laughs to herself. Of course it does.

Why should she wear the glorified lab-coat, representing the medicine industry of her district, when that same district somehow can't supply her mother with a cure? Her mother gets to die, while these bubbly, self-centered airheads complain about needing new pain killers, or talk about the latest cream by so-and-so which makes your complexion gleam like a pearl!

She wants to punch something.

But that's not who she is, and it's not who she will become in the games. That much is for sure. Her last impression to the world (and to her mother- no, she can't think of that) shouldn't be of violence and rage. She wants to show the world what District 5 is made of. Smarts, that's for sure. And a certain amount of fight, that too. It's not District 1, where everyone lives comfortably, and it's not District 12, where, apparently, poverty is rampant. It's somewhere in between, if you're lucky. And if you're her family, well-

There's always more work to be found, they say. Work harder and the money for the medicine will come to you.

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><p>She quietly surveys the other tributes like a fox on the hunt. There's nothing special about some of them, but others make excellent tributes. There's the Careers, of course, and then there's that Katniss girl.<p>

She looks like real competition.

Her arrows land perfectly, every time. She looks interested in the knots. She knows what she's doing, or is at least good at pretending she does.

That's half the game, isn't it?

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><p>She doesn't lack motivation, that's for sure. She just doesn't allow herself to hope. Because if she did, she could imagine herself coming home, greeting the people of District 5, waving to them, kissing her little siblings on the cheek, hugging her parents, providing a new house, more money, money which could be used for the treatment-<p>

This is why she doesn't dare to hope. It's childish in a way, but maybe if she doesn't imagine the best case scenario, she won't be disappointed. She feels that imagining it might jinx it, or something.

With every tribute score announced, it's starting to look even worse.

This was going to be one hell of a Hunger Game.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Here's the second chapter! I'm not sure how many chapter there will be, it depends on how long people want to read this for :) Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine, obviously.**

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><p>The platform rises and immediately she tries to take in her surroundings. <em>Sixty seconds. Don't move. You'll be blown to pieces. <em>For a moment, she's tempted.

The stadium is large, incredibly large. That much she can gauge from her perch.

Water? A lake. It's too close to the Cornucopia though. It would do her no good, really.

Is there a forest? Yes, a small one.

So no open field. She mentally sighs with relief. The gamemakers probably wouldn't have done that, anyways – the games would be over in seconds.

She quickly considers her options. Run to the Cornucopia? Run away? Fight? Flee? Her mentor had been absolutely useless. He'd won his Hunger Game by hiding until the end, which had come within about two days. He didn't touch a weapon the entire time, and he didn't know the first thing about survival. He'd merely found a small stream near a cave, and survived without food for two days. He was lucky, because the other contestants bludgeoned each other the death while he hid, and to his great surprise, he was announced the winner within 48 hours. It was commonly known as the most boring Hunger Game ever to be broadcasted, and the shortest. Her mentor was also old now, since no one had won the games from District 5 for over thirty years.

Not a fantastic start for her, really.

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><p>She's waiting for the gong to go off, and it's the most terrifying moment of her life. She may as well not think about running or fleeing, because the way it's going now she's not going to be able to move, anyway. Her legs feel like lead, and her stomach is in knots. Her toes and fingers feel frozen, which she briefly has time to wonder about before the gong goes off.<p>

Suddenly, it's like time has slowed down. She can see the other tributes, shooting off from their perches. Some of them run towards the Cornucopia, some of them take the nearest thing and run off to the forest or the fields.

But she's just standing there, and her brain is screaming at her.

_Run. Runrunrun. Doesn't matter where, you just have to __**move.**_

Finally, after what feels like a five minutes but was in reality probably only about two seconds, she's running forwards. Her body has decided for her – go straight for the Corncupia. She can see blood around her, on the golden horn, and people are screaming.

_This is a really bad idea,_ she's thinking. _What am I doing?_

She's incredibly lucky though, because no one seems to have noticed her stealthily running towards the middle.

She managed to jump about half way up the horn, which she surprised herself with, but adrenaline can make you do incredible things. She clamors up the rest of the way, her shoes giving her some grip on the shiny metal, before the jumps straight into the middle of the horn. She doesn't look around to see if anyone noticed her. She just grabs the nearest things, as much as she can take, before leaping off the other side and sprinting towards the sparse forest in front of her.

On the inside, she's panicking like never before.

On the outside, that must have looked _really_ impressive.

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><p>The sounds from the battlefield continue on for about two hours, before everything quiets down. She's found a small cave near the edge of the forest, where, for the moment, she feels safe enough. There have been enough deaths to satisfy the audience for a while, she reckons.<p>

She's laid out her supplies, and is impressed with the quality of her selection. She managed to grab a decent amount of things.

She's got a large hunting knife, which could be useful for killing animals (or humans, but she doesn't want to think about that. Killing some other tribute - someone just like her, who's been subjected to torture for the sake of entertainment – seems like the most horrible thing to her. But the arena is large, and it's not home, and she knows the time will come where she'll have to fight to survive. And when it does, she'll be ruthless. But for now, she wants to relish in the fact that she has no one's blood on her hands.)

She also managed to score a backpack, some matches, another weapon she can't identify but which looks very deadly and food to last her a while. But she knows it's not enough. She'll have to go back at some point just to get more food.

Her most useful items are, however, her tenting pack and flashlight. She takes out the sleeping bag from the tenting pack, since she doesn't need the tent in the cave, and lies down, waiting for the death announcements.

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><p>She's exhausted but she won't be able to sleep. It's almost night time now, but there's really nothing for her to do but wait for tomorrow, when the gamemakers will inevitably find a way to drive her from her safe hiding spot straight into the fight. She wonders briefly how the other tributes are doing, and if they've formed alliances. In the end, though, it doesn't matter. They're all the enemy to her.<p>

Her goal, she thinks a bit later, is to try and get home. It's not just that she doesn't want to die in front of the entire nation of Panem, it's also that she doesn't want her family to be in the situation they were when she left.

She was their hope. She was smarter than all the other kids in her class, and she'd secured herself a place with the top pharmaceutical producer in District 5. She could have invented a new cure, something to make her family incredibly rich.

If she returns, they _will_ be incredibly rich. They can pay for her mother's medicine, and live in a large house, and her siblings will never have to know what it's like to live the way they she did as a child. They're young enough to forget.

It's that thought which keeps her going, which stopped her from jumping off the platform too early or from just standing in front of a Career and begging for death. She wants to help her family. Taking the easy way out would have been disgraceful to them.

She's going to fight until the end.

It won't be easy, but it's never been easy for her.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Here's the next chapter! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, it motivated me to update quickly **

**Disclaimer: Still not mine.**

She dreams in black and white that night. There are pavements and houses, black and white, and lab coats and people and hospitals. Everything started to blend and swirl into one gray blur until she wakes up with a jolt.

She's strangely comforted by the fact that no matter where she is, nightmares never change.

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><p>There were 11 cannon shots before she fell asleep. The boy who came from District 5 with her was killed. She feels guilty for not knowing his name – she had been too worked up over her own reaping to pay much attention to him. All she knew was that he came from a similar background as her, which made her instantly sad. At least her family had moved away. His family would be look down upon ("Their son didn't even make it past the first day." She'd heard it often enough, in school, on the streets, everywhere. The kids whose siblings were killed early in the games were often picked on in school. It was terrible. Not only did they lose their family – they lost their dignity, too<p>

She wanted to avoid this happening to her siblings. Come what may, she'll have to rank at least in the top five. If she makes it (she barely dares to hope it), then she'll have achieved something no one had done in District 5 for many years.

No one would dare to tease her siblings then).

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><p>She spares a quick thought for the boy's family before packing up her belongings. She has a feeling the game makers aren't pleased with her easy escape. She wonders how the other tributes are doing.<p>

A quick sneak back to the edge of the forest tells her that the Careers have formed an alliance and have taken over the main area near the lake, with the remaining supplies. She's surprised to see the boy from District 3 there, too. _What use could he be?_ She can make out another figure amongst the Careers, but it isn't until he moves directly into her line of sight that she recognizes him as the boy from District 12. The one who's in love with the Katniss girl. His name escapes her. Peter? Pinta…. Peeta! That's it. His interview had everyone buzzing. She's surprised he's not with Katniss. Surely he hasn't gone against her?

_Focus._

She scans the group of people one more time to see who else has joined the alliance, but doesn't find any other tributes.

There's no way she's going to try and form an alliance with them now. If she jumped out from behind the tree she's using for coverage, they'd surely kill her on the spot.

Instead, she retreats a bit into the forest, until the foliage in front of her is dense enough to block any sight of her from the Main Group (as she now thinks of them as), and climbs the tallest tree she can find. If she stands on one of the branches, not the highest one, but one a bit lower down, she can just about see the group. She mentally checks off the supplies she's carrying and wonders if any of them would make her see the group better, but honestly, even if she had one, she probably wouldn't have recognized it. There's not much use for magnifying equipment in District 5 unless it's a microscope.

She sits comfortably on the branch she's on, or as comfortably as one can sit in a tree. There's not much to do at the moment except observe the Main Group and try to figure out what they're doing. She's a bit hungry, but she has to be careful with her supply until she can find a new source of food. It's not like she can hunt or knows which berries or roots are good to eat. Knowing her luck, she'd eat a poisoned plant on her first try and die immediately. And that's not really what she wants.

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><p>She wakes up a few hours later to the sound of a cannonball firing. She's furious with herself. She can't believe she fell asleep – this is a dangerous place, where anything can happen at any time, and here she is, <em>sleeping. <em>She immediately looks over at the Main Group's camp to see if anything has changed, and yes, it has. The entire supply of food and weapons has been brought to one place, and the boy from District 3 seems to be working around it. Though she can't quite see what they're doing, she can guess it's dangerous to her.

Looking around some more, she notices that there are holes around the platforms they emerged from. Putting two and two together, she gasps.

They have the bombs.

She thinks back to the other Hunger Games she's seen, and she's pretty sure this has never happened before. District 3 – of course he would know how the bombs work. She berates herself again for having fallen asleep. She wonders if the cameras caught her napping, and realizes they probably did.

She's briefly amused when she thinks of the amount of people who must have shouted at her from behind their TV sets, yelling at her to wake up. But only briefly, because it probably didn't make her look like a very good tribute, which make her sponsorship chances even slimmer than they were before.

She watches the boy place the bombs very carefully over the next few hours. He seems to have some sort of pattern worked out. His allies are nowhere to be seen, and she gathers they're probably out looking for other tributes to kill, hence the cannon shot.

The boy from District 3 works quickly and efficiently. She wonders why we would join the alliance when, surely, he knows he doesn't stand a chance once they decide to kill him. Some of the Careers have been trained to kill from birth – this boy looks like he's barely 50 kilos. It's a suicide mission.

She chuckles darkly. Well, it's a suicide mission for 23 of them, no matter what.

Digging around in her bag, she finds a pen and something which resembles paper, and carefully maps the bombs the boy places. She's missed some of the first ones, because she fell asleep (she's still mad at herself) but she manages about twenty or so, which is good enough to start with. She'll just wait until one of them walks towards the food, and she'll know the path to go. This solves her food issue, so she finally eats some of the bread and crackers and dried meat she has in her bag.

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><p>She spends the rest of the day watching the field, waiting for them to return. On guard, she moves every so often so she doesn't fall asleep again. At the same time, she thinks about how she could try to make this last as long as possible.<p>

(Right now, her aim isn't even winning. That's a fantasy too far-fetched to even dream about. For her, it's all about the survival now.)

She knows she's not the best fighter in the group. She doesn't have the skills she needs to be a killer. She's fast, and she's smart, and she's small. That's all she's got.

But she'll make it count.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I'll try to upload more quickly from now on :)**

**Disclaimer: If you really believe The Hunger Games series is mine, there may be something wrong with you.**

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><p>It's late into the afternoon when the Main Group started moving. Quickly, she packs everything she'd unloaded back into her bag climbs the closest tree. Only once she'd reaches the top branch does she dare to slow down and take a peek down. Through the branches she can just barely see the Careers packing supplies. She's on her guard. She needs to be able to jump away quickly should the Careers come to towards her. To her horror, they do. Each one of them seems to be loaded down with as many weapons as they can carry, which makes them slow enough for her to get a good distance away from them. Her speed and small stature have never been of this much use. She can jump from tree to tree, keeping off the ground and making a faster get-away than she could have done on foot. Only once does she almost slip, but she manages to catch herself before she goes tumbling a rather long way down. Her slip-up does cost her a scratch along her arm, sustained when she threw it wildly around looking for something to hold on to, but it's something she can worry about later. Right now, she needs to get to safety.<p>

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><p>She's about a mile into the forest before she realizes that her original plan was to wait it out near the campsite so she could observe how the Main Group avoids the bombs on their way to the food. She mentally face-palms and berates herself. She was so focused on getting away that she didn't consider just moving left or right, a little out of range, instead of retreating back into the forest. She's about to jump back onto the tree she just came from to retrace her steps when she hears a sound coming from the ground. As quietly as she can, she crouches down low and strains her ears. It doesn't sounds like the Careers - they would make more noise. Suddenly, the Katniss girl is right below her, walking steadily in the direction the Careers are coming from. Briefly, she thinks about warning the girl, but decides against it just as quickly. If she jumped down, Katniss would have her throat slit in two seconds flat, before she could even get a warning out. No, that doesn't sound like a very nice ending. It's with an uncomfortable jolt that she realizes it's probably one of the nicest endings she can hope for. She shudders and moves on, back to the camp site. She takes a slight detour, however - she doesn't want any more run-ins.<p>

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><p>Her stupid mistake costs her not only a lot of energy, but also an opportunity to steal some food. With most of the group gone, she would have been able to steal some without anyone seeing - as long as the remaining Tributes' backs were turned. She sits herself down heavily behind a large rock, a little way into the forest. From this position, no one can see her even if they walk into the forest, but she can quickly make her way to the edge of the forest and see what the Careers are up to. She turns her attention towards her arm. The cut in her arm is deeper than she originally thought. It runs from her wrist to the inside of her elbow, and is bleeding quite heavily. She searches her bag for something to wrap it with, but comes up with only a white flag. She stares at it for a moment, wondering why in the world a white flag would be placed in a bag of essentials, and then grimaces. It's a Gamemakers' joke. A white flag of surrender.<p>

How very funny.

As if there's such a thing as mercy in the Hunger Games.

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><p>She manages to wrap the flag around her arm after washing some dirt from the cut with her water. It's not perfect, and the whole of the medical sector of District 5 is probably shaking their heads at her, but it's the best she can do. Her stomach rumbles loudly - she hasn't eaten since that morning and her little excursion took a lot of the energy she has left. Swinging in the trees wasn't as easy as it looked. Rummaging in her bag, she fishes out some more crackers and eats them slowly, savouring them. She needs to get that food, and she needs to get it soon. She makes up her mind - tonight, she's going in.<p>

In order to do that, however, she first needs to find out how to avoid being blown to pieces by a rather strong bomb or two. She can't do that by sitting behind the rock all day, so she shoulders her backpack and walks the few minutes back to the edge of the forest. She finds a large tree, similar to the one she was hiding behind last time, and hides again. This is what she's good at - hiding. Running from confrontation. Even at home she wasn't a fighter, but more of a peacekeeper. She usually gave in when arguing just to stop the debate, not because she thought she was wrong. She was just a very non-confrontational contestant. In a perfect scenario, everyone would kill each other off, and she'd be the last one standing. She had no desire to kill anyone - in fact, the thought made her feel sick to her stomach. So she focused her attention back to the Main Group, who had all returned, minus Peeta. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only about twenty minutes, someone finally decided to get food. They stood next to a large rock, and moved in quick steps. Left, left, forward, right, large step forward, diagonal jump to the right, and that was it. She grinned to herself. It was easier than she thought! She quickly took out her map of the bombs and sketched approximately where she thought the tribute had jumped. Now all she needed to do was wait until nightfall, when it was dark, so she could make her move.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Wow, so, I guess when I said I was going to update soon I was lying. Sorry! Also, this story is now kind of AU since the functions of the other districts were announced. Turns out, District 5 is not a medicine-producing district, but oh well. Suspend your disbelief for a bit :)**

**Disclaimer: Again, I own nothing.**

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><p>Night falls quickly, far more quickly than is natural. For a moment, she considers if the game makers know what she's planning and are helping her in a twisted way.<p>

The climb down from the tree takes some time, not because it's difficult, but because she doesn't want to leave the safety of her branches. There could be all kinds of traps on the ground, as well as tributes hiding in the bushes. Steeling herself, she jumps down from the last branch and closes her eyes. After a second, she open one of them tentatively. No one had killed her and nothing had exploded - a good thing, in her opinion. She moves forward as quickly and silently as she can, ducking into a bush every few steps. It's tedious, but necessary.

She reaches the edge of the forest within a few minutes and waits. Then waits some more. The embers of the fire the Main Group has lit are dying, and one by one they're falling asleep. Of course, they have someone on guard, but it's the small boy from District 3, and he's looking the wrong way. Under the cover of darkness, she has a chance of making it through alive.

She had to act _now_. The boy from District 3 was pacing back and forth on the same five feet of dirt on the other side of the camp, near where the Careers are sleeping. She smirks. They probably think there was no point in guarding the food, since anyone trying to steal it would inevitably blow themselves up.

_Well, not this girl_, she thinks. Running as fast as she can, she tears out of the forest and towards the mines. She had memorized the entire sequence while waiting for night to come, so she's able to go through it quickly. With bated breath, she performes the routine. Left, left, forward, right, large step forward, diagonal jump to the right and - she releases the breath she's holding. She's made it. A quick victory smile, and then it's on to the mountain of food. She doesn't want to take too much at once, but at the same time, she can't be sure when she has another chance to get anything. She decides on some bread, cheese, apples and a bottle of water. Just when she's about to climb down, she spots some chocolate, and damn her if it's not exactly what she wants right now. So with nimble fingers, she tries to extract it, but only having limited movement due to the other items she's carrying, it doesn't go according to plan. Some small items of food start rolling down the hill of food as she dislodges the chocolate and she panics. Throwing out one of her arm, she manages to catch most of them, but an orange bounces to the ground. She holds her breath as it rolls, as if in slow motion, towards where she knows there's a mine. Vaguely, she notes how this probably makes for very exciting viewing at home, and is a little bit relieved about that. It means that the game makers probably won't violently kill her for being too boring any time soon.

The orange stops about an inch from the mine and she nearly collapses with relief. She slowly walks towards it and picks it up, trying to remove all evidence of her having been here. She performs the routine backwards, leaping over all the mines with grace, and then manages to make her escape back to the forest. For the first time in the games, she smiles broadly. That was superb, even if she says so herself. She can practically hear everyone in District 5 celebrating the way she outwitted the Careers. Careers are hated universally outside of their districts, so this is like a double-victory for District 5; not only did their tribute gather more supplies for herself, but she also stuck it to the wealthier districts. She can't help the small feeling of pride that wells up inside her at the thought of what she's just done. She hopes her parents are still awake, watching their daughter make her way steadily up the rankings in the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

It's only later when she realizes the fact that apart from her district, the other people who she probably just impressed are sponsors. She hopes that her mentor is trying his hardest to secure some deals, but gives up on that train of thought quickly - she'd be surprised if he even knew what sponsors were. Up in the safety of her tree, she unwraps the magical bar of chocolate and just stares at it for a moment. Taking a small bite, she has to surpress a moan. It's the small victories, she thinks. And this one is just for me.

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><p>There are a few more cannon shots in the sky that night, but she's already starting to lose count of how many tributes are left. She knows there are only four more tributes in the Main Group, and she assumes the Katniss girl is still alive. The boy she came with, Peeta, didn't return with the Careers, so she can only assume they've killed him and left him somewhere. She knows there are other districts and tributes around, but they're not the ones she's worried about right now. If she had to put her money on any one tribute winning (who is she kidding - as if she has any money), she'd chose either one of the District 1 kids or Katniss. She has a feeling Katniss is a lot like her - calculating and cautious, but also armed, and that makes her scary and dangerous. Best to steer clear of her then. There's no movement or sound coming from the camp as far as she can tell, but she's sitting in some lower branches this time, so it's harder to tell. However, the lack of shouting means she's fairly sure no one has noticed her night-time adventure. She's glad. A steady supply of food means there's one less thing for her to worry about in this endless, nightmarish disaster she's somehow gotten into. She sighs and settles down. Nothing to do but wait.<p>

Oh, and survive, but that's a minor issue, really.


End file.
